Chapter 34

The week passed quickly for me, working on Comet’s car in the day, then spending the evening being trounced in hundred different ways by Taejun. Jung Hana had me waking up at the crack of dawn every morning to make the most out of every work day trying to get Comet’s GTR back into racing shape for the last tournament race. Every evening I stumbled back to my Z with my ego and my body bruised after ‘training’ with Taejun. Then I practiced driving with Eunsoo and Ryu outside the city. Every night was a fight to get enough hours of sleep to have the energy to do it all again the next day.

I had no idea what Seolhee was up to after our last stand-off, but Eunsoo reported that she was apparently feeling guilty that her little scheme had ended up in Ryusuke and Comet racing. She hadn’t expected that using Comet to make me jealous would have gone off in such a severe tangent.

“If you want to reach out to her, now’s a good time,” he had offhandedly mentioned. “Not saying you two have to date, but she is somewhat part of this team.”

The idea hadn’t been appealing at all to me. “Is she good with Ryu?” I asked.

Eunsoo hadn’t answered right away. “Ryu doesn’t look like it, but he’s actually pretty bad about holding grudges.”

So they weren’t on good terms either. Well, if Ryu was allowed to hold a grudge, I should be too. I let Eunsoo know my thoughts on that matter. He shrugged.

“At least I tried,” he said.

Seolhee was a distraction I simply couldn’t afford right now.

Jung Hana and Comet must either have had top tier sources or an entire backlog of spare parts (Fireball did say that the Sunchasers had ‘a lot of cars’), because it didn’t take them long to get any replacement parts that the GTR needed. Getting the spare parts was always the longest part of a repair.

As promised, Hana did the majority of the internal work in the hood. I did do my very best to sneakily learn what it was she was doing. Despite the confidentiality Jung Hana had me swear to, I was curious to see what a top tuner (I’m not sure if Comet counted, but that car had been thoroughly curated by Hana) did to their car.

Replacing panels was far faster (if costlier) than trying to repair them, so replacing the GTR’s damaged beyond repair front panels were a cinch. The undercarriage was a different story.

Somehow, we managed to finish the work on the GTR by Thursday evening, which gave Comet enough time to run his car and make any final adjustments if needed on his own. I tried not to grin too viciously as Comet paid Jung Hana, knowing that 40% of that payment would be going to me.

The victorious feeling of his money in my (figurative, as it was all online) hand was as sweet as if I had raced him and won myself. It was a pretty hefty payment. Just by itself it would be enough to cover the weekly interest, even if we didn’t place in the tournament. Of course, I wouldn’t allow that to happen.

We had to win.

The call to the tournament came far earlier than expected. It was early Friday evening. We knew it would be late in the week, the time he gave us didn’t seem right.

I’d been relieved that I had finished my work with Hana before Friday so I had at least a day to mentally and physically prepare (though to be honest, I just mostly slept in most of the day, catching up on my lack of sleep over the week).

The meet time was 7pm, so I had to lie a little to Taejun and I wouldn’t be able to make dinner/fight club with him because of work. We were going back to New Banpo Bridge.

The Blue Tigers and I were a little early, and LC hadn’t showed up yet.

“I thought he said he wasn’t going to be starting anything from New Banpo,” I said to Sungmin.

Sungmin shrugged. “Who knows what’s going on that little orange head of his,” he said.

Of all the races we’d done, this one had me in the most anxiety. I desperately needed us to win something. We were third overall so far, but our combined time was not in a good spot. We were far closer to fourth than we were to second. Our performance today had to be top notch.

The combined nervous energies of me and Ryusuke were apparently too much for Eunsoo to handle. He tried to run us through breathing exercises like some sort of yogi, but neither of us took him up on it. “Both of you need to chill out. You’re not even driving, Ryu.”

“Yeah, but you are,” Ryu said. Hurriedly, he also added, “I don’t understand how you’re not.”

“Aw, worried about me, babe? I’m just doing this for fun,” Eunsoo said.

“Won’t be so fun for you if you crash,” Ryu reminded him. He was probably still shaken up over Comet’s crash.

“Oof, don’t jinx me. I’ve never crashed,” he boasted.

At long last, LC finally appeared, well after all the five competing teams had all arrived. He gathered the racers for the pre-race debrief. The first thing he did was pass out a bunch of small, antennae-d boxes.

“What’s this?” I asked. It looked like maybe a little wifi router, but why would he be giving us that?

“It’s a scrambler,” LC said with a wide grin. “Cover those plates, boys! And girls. We’re driving in the city tonight!”

There were woops and some exclamations. Though most were excited, some racers looked unhappy with the news. San Minso from Team Thunder and his sister looked particularly distraught by this revelation.

“Thought we weren’t going to be doing inner city races anymore,” Minso said.

In the commotion I held the box thing out to Ryu and asked him what the scrambler was for.

“Messes up signals. This one distorts color info on camera feeds, 5G connections, and nearby radio waves,” he explained quickly. “Makes your car harder to identify.”

“What? What about the stream?”

“It’s short distance, so the drone will be out of its range.”

“I know it’s been a while,” LC said loudly to get everyone’s attention back. “But hey. This group we’ve got here, you guys are the best of the best. The chat, the big boys, the guys with the cash, they want a show. So we’re going to give them a show. How we are supposed to have a tournament showing off that we can handle the jjapsae if they’re not even involved?” The little orange man grinned, and looked terribly wolfish.

“This isn’t a movie. There’s real consequences here,” Minso’s sister said.

“Then you’re welcome to back out,” LC said coolly. “If you think you can’t outdrive a cop car, what makes you think you’re worthy of being called a street racer?”

Team Thunder was sitting well in first place, and suddenly everyone’s eyes were on them. If they backed out now, it could be anyone’s race. I know I was secretly hoping they would.

But they didn’t say anything, so LC continued. “Tonight’s going to be a crazy one. If we’re going to be in the city, conditions have to be fair for all. And that means we won’t be going one at a time.”

“It’s a five-way death match,” he crowed. “Needless to say, if you get caught before you finish, you’re out of the race. If you crash, you’re out. In this game, we’ll be running a flag.” One of his staff handed him a red flag. “Each team has three flags. Since we’re going all out in the city, there’ll be no stopping to tag in your teammate. The police might be hot on your tail. You can’t stop. You’ll need to get safe. So what each runner is going to do is race to the end of their track as fast as they can and drop their flag. The moment that flag hits the ground, their teammate, waiting at a second location, goes. They run their track, drop their flag, then the last teammate at the last location goes. Your time is how long it takes for all three flags to be delivered.”

The rules sounded simple enough, and probably even less dangerous than tagging in the teammate. But the race would be thick with hundreds of unknown factors. There would other cars on the road. Police might be in pursuit. And five cars would be racing at the same time.

The race would be staggered near the end. But the first set of racers would all be starting at the same time. So in addition to navigating the already crowded streets, you’d have to jockey for the best position between the other five. The first leg would no doubt be the most difficult.

“Track maps have been distributed. You have thirty minutes to discuss strategy with your team,” LC said, and left us to it.

The Tigers all turned to Sungmin.

“This is different,” said Eunsoo.

“Very different,” Sungmin agreed.

Ryusuke had brought his Tsunami, just in case. In terms of pure power and initial acceleration, the Tsunami was unmatched, except maybe by the Sunchasers’ Huracan. The Tsunami had the better sustained acceleration climb, but that came at the cost of touchier handling. It was the best pick if the track was long and straight, but today the driver would undoubtedly need to weave in and out of traffic, and unfortunately with such hair trigger handling at high acceleration, it would be too easy to lose control of it and crash.

It was also one of perhaps six or seven Tsunamis in all of Korea, so it was also simply too recognizable for a city race (the attention it attracted was another reason Ryusuke hardly ever took it out).

We wouldn’t be able to put the Tsunami in the race tonight, but the Huracan certainly would be going in, no doubt in the last leg.

Without the Tsunami in play, we had to choose which car would be going in first. In terms of raw horsepower, my ECU adjusted Nissan Z, even with its minimal engine modifications, far outstripped Sungmin’s WRX. The Z’s 0-60 time was just under 3 seconds, just half the time of the WRX’s. Eunsoo had gone powermad with his BRZ, and had nearly completely rebuilt the engine and transmission. After adding in a turbocharger kit, he had doubled the stock horsepower and tripled the torque to over 500lb.

And it still handled.

We easily decided that Sungmin’s car would go second. But whether Eunsoo or I would go first was less easily decided. It came down to Eunsoo’s experience. As much as we would have liked to have him as the anchor, the first part would need incredible maneuvering to get out of the five car pack at the start. Though none of us had ever had to do such a thing, Sungmin decided that Eunsoo’s experience with racing made it more likely that he would do better than me in that situation.

Ryu seemed concerned with Sungmin’s decision.

“If you were racing, it would be you. But you’re not in the running for this. It’s Eunsoo or Jae,” Sungmin reminded him. Cars could be swapped out in the tournament. But not the drivers.

Being the anchor car again put a lot of pressure on me. Last time I’d hit the guardrail and screwed it for the team. This time I’d be racing alongside our competitors, and I’m not sure if that would make me better or worse knowing just exactly how close we were to winning or losing.

As expected, Fireball and his Huracan was the Sunchasers’ anchor car. Tofu and his Silvia was Team Thunder’s pick. The second place team, Power Slam, had placed a GTR in this bracket, and rounding out the five was Carbon Cult’s Supra.

Sitting alongside these monsters at our start line had my heart racing already. I hoped Eunsoo and Sungmin would do well. I needed every second of advantage possible.

A beautiful woman in a glossy, revealing outfit was counting down for the first set of racers. “Let’s show the world how we do it in Inner Seoul!” she cried.

Apparently, LC had gathered some people for the final show, because we could hear cheering in the audio as she strutted up and down the line of impressive cars, blowing a kiss to each of the drivers within. Some of the bigger dicked boys inside (Eunsoo included) revved their cars in return, drowning out the cheers of the crowd with their fearsome snarls of their engine.

“It’s all about this moment. Go fast, stay safe, have fun, and one more thing…” she put her finger to her lip prettily as though she were trying to remember. Then a flash of inspiration hit her and she pointed right at the camera with a sultry wink. “There’s nothing more important than winning.”

What a show. I wonder if LC had given her a script.

“Are you ready?” A cacophony of engine roars answered her impatiently. She smiled at them but continued to hold her hands on her hip.The moment lasted almost too long.

“Go!”

Her hair went flying as all five cars peeled out. She flipped it back with a beautiful smile, and then the camera finally cut to the overhead drone.

(Not that I hadn’t enjoyed watching her. The race was just slightly more important.)

There were no in-car cams today. The scramblers would have ruined that feed. To my surprise, Eunsoo’s BRZ hadn’t taken the initial lead in the launch. The car that did was Comet’s GTR. Maybe Hana and I had done a bit too good of a job on it.

It cut left hard, jockeying for that inner position for the first turn coming up quick. The Honda NRX that had had the left most starting position refused to cede that position and fought to keep its nose at the GTR’s hip.

What in the world was Eunsoo doing? His BRZ’s launch should have been far more powerful, and yet he was trailing near the end of the pack.

The first turn came up quick, and now they were entering into a more traffic heavy zone. Not for the first time, I wished that overhead drone had audio. That intersection must be absolutely lighting up with alarmed honks from the civilian drivers unfortunate to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Brakes were slammed, and cars skidded to a stop as the five sports cars charged into the turn. The screams of their tires must have been bone chilling. To my delight, Comet’s GTR went wide. He had been pushing the inner corner too hard, and entered at the wrong angle. So did the NRX. The back two cars, Eunsoo’s BRZ and a Mazda MX-5, unpressured by the front cars, entered at the optimal angle. I couldn’t help pumping my fist in the air to see Eunsoo cut the innermost edge of the corner in a perfect almost powerslide drift. In a moment, he had gone from fourth to first. But the MX-5 was hot on his tail.

“What a move,” I said breathlessly, to the no one in my car.

The GTR had turned poorly but in the straight it accelerated hard, weaving in and out of the cars in the street to reclaim third place, leaving the NRX in the back. In a second moment, it had pulled up alongside the MX-5, pressuring it outwards.

Eunsoo was not in a good position for the next turn. The MX-5 had been just past his tail, and Comet’s pressure on the MX-5 had also pressured him outwards. I anxiously watched to see what he would do.

A car in front of them caused the three cars to scatter around it, with Eunsoo going even further out, and the MX-5 forcibly rammed the GTR to force them both inwards. I groaned. I had worked so hard on that GTR and now it was already getting beat up again. I shifted my focus back to Eunsoo. The turn was upon them.

Eunsoo turned hard, and though I had learned from Ryu that drifting was never the fastest way around a corner, he drifted. His quick dart around the slower car had given him a tiny edge of speed and he utilitized that to its full advantage, angling the drift of his car inwards and cutting off the two just behind him, forcing them to either swing wide around him, or follow his drift.

The MX-5 went for the swing around, but by the time it had finished the turn, Eunsoo’s BRZ was on the straight and long gone, darting in between cars as nimbly as a … something nimble. It really nimble, ok?

The traffic was thick now. I thought Comet’s GTR would do well, but either Comet was still nervous about his last crash, or else he just didn’t have the skill, because he was quickly losing ground. The final car, a Supra, had overtaken the NRX and quickly gaining on Comet.

Back in the front, Eunsoo was dominating the race as the MX-5 struggled to keep up. Eunsoo’s BRZ cut it off before every turn, and coming down into the final stretch, he was two car lengths ahead of the MX-5.

Red and blue lights accosted them suddenly at an intersection, and my heart leapt into my throat. They were so close to their finish!

As they neared their finish line, the feed switched over to a ground cam to show the flag drops. The police car’s pressure had eaten into Eunsoo’s lead, so that the MX-5 was now right behind him again. But the BRZ would get there first, and Ryu had given us another little trick. The ground cam caught a blur of blue and red as the BRZ and the MX-5 shot over the finish line. Two flags, one blue, one yellow, dropped downwards.

We’d tied a rock to our blue flag, and it went straight down. The yellow one of Team Thunder caught a gust of wind, and despite being dropped only a moment after, did not have that same momentum, and floated softly downwards.

Was it a dirty trick? Maybe. Did it give us an extra three seconds? Absolutely.

I didn’t have time to worry about whether Eunsoo would be able to outrun the cop car now hot on his or the MX-5’s tail.

The overhead feed for the second route popped up. Sungmin’s WRX had peeled out entirely unchallenged. It had the weakest launch out of the Blue Tigers’ three cars, but the same went for all the other cars in the second leg. Han Minso’s GR86 launched seconds later when their flag finally hit the ground, and it was hungry for vengeance.

Third out of the gate was a Honda Civic SI, next came the Sunchasers’ Chevy Camaro, one of the few American cars in the meet. The overhead drone didn’t even catch the last car’s launch.

Minso had easily regained the lost ground from their late state. Sungmin’s all-wheel drive WRX was powerful, making sharp, cutting weaves in and out of traffic. But it didn’t drift as well as Minso’ GR86, which meant it couldn’t go for corner outplays like Eunsoo had. If it wanted to make those corners fast, it needed to approach them on the racing line. That meant approaching from the outermost edge and cutting through the apex of the curve and then out to the outermost edge on the exit.

It didn’t take long for Minso to figure out Sungmin’s strategy, and to start to block him in the turns. Even though Minso struggled to keep up with Sungmin’s WRX in the straights, it easily gained in the many turns in their leg of the route.

But such aggressive plays in the turns slowed them both. The Camaro, the SI, and the fifth car, another BRZ, despite starting much later, were now right behind them.

Even worse, cop cars joined the pursuit as well.

I was concerned for my friends (I had no idea where Eunsoo was), and not just because getting caught meant the end of our race. The cars were approaching a four way intersection just as the lights were changing over. Sungmin, Minso, and the Camaro all accelerated hard to dive through it before crossing cars cut them off. Even though much of the crossing cars slammed their brakes, the SI and the BRZ lost their nerve, and both made a hard last minute turn at the intersection. I’m not sure if they were planning on a detouring around a block, or if they had just given up the race. The cop cars didn’t have the nerve to follow the lead three through the intersection. One full stopped, but the other continued to pursue the SI and BRZ peeling off.

There was only one drone, and it chose to follow the lead three cars. One last big turn, and then they would be reaching the end. I didn’t like just how close it was. My leg was full of straights, and I needed as much start time advantage as possible against that Huracan. At least beat out the Camaro, I urged Sungmin.

The Camaro was a mere car length behind Sungmin’s WRX. The road had narrowed to two lanes. Minso’s GR86 had taken the lead– no, the BRZ was back! It shot out of an intersection and skidded into place just in front of the GR86. The Civic SI and the cop car that had been pursuing them both were nowhere to be seen. The GR86 braked to avoid slamming into the BRZ as the BRZ swerved, trying to regain control, but Sungmin didn’t care. His WRX darted around the GR86, reclaiming second.

The driver of Power Slam’s GTR next to me was celebrating her friend in the Subaru BRZ. Somehow it had gone from fourth to first, completely overturning the status quo. The four cars screeched through the last turn, and it held tight to the lead position despite Sungmin’s WRX and Minso’s GR86 pushing against it.

The last stretch was thankfully void of cars (as far as the drone could see). Now it was a power gamble. If that BRZ was anywhere as powerful as Eunsoo’s, we could be in real trouble.

I’d forgotten about the Camaro. Even a stock Camaro had almost 500 HP and 500lb of torque, and the Sunchasers loved cranking up the power on their machines. Who knew what it was now. I could almost hear the triumphant roar of that powerful V8 (if it was still a V8 in there, at least) as the driver within it hit its throttle. It shot forward, easily overpowering the GR86, and went for its next target, Sungmin’s WRX.

The power of that launch had to have been nitrous oxide induced. In a moment it had pulled just past Sungmin’s WRX. But Sungmin knew what car the Sunchasers had in the last leg. If he let the Camaro take first, nothing in the last leg could catch the Huracan.

To my horror, he sideswiped the rear bump of the Camaro hard as it was pulling past. The Camaro spun out but Sungmin hit the brakes and it spun right past him. Sungmin reengaged. Minso veered hard to the left to avoid the Camaro spinning out.

Unchallenged now, Sungmin kicked his WRX into high gear. Its powerful all-wheel drive launch pursued Power Slam’s BRZ, but it wasn’t enough. The BRZ shot over the finish line first, its red flag drifting down behind it.

It was only a few seconds as that flag leisurely floated down, but it felt like an eternity. Sungmin’s WRX shot over the finish line and our blue flag came flying out.

The GTR next to me roared to life and with a screech of burning rubber, left us.

Less than a second later, our gravity assisted flag hit the ground. My turn.

I had kept the engine purring the entire last stretch, and when I kicked the throttle, it drank deep and we were gone. I barely remembered to turn on the scrambler. The feed on my tablet instantly went haywire. Now I had no idea who would be launching next.

Even though the GTR and I had only a fraction of a second between our starts, the GTR had launched harder, and was already in front. It pulled into my lane to keep me behind it. Angrily I jerked my wheel to change lanes so I could get around it, but the GTR was watching, and followed me. Behind us, Tofu’s Silvia had joined the race.

I veered side to side, but Power Slam’s GTR played me like a cat with a mouse, cutting me off constantly. Finally though, a car appeared in the lane ahead of us, and I held my ground, waiting to see where the GTR would go.

She wanted to wait for me, but being a whole car length in front, she had to make the decision earlier than I. Her car went left.

I went right. It was less than ideal, as the first turn (left) was coming up, and now I was on the outer lane.

I had to turn early and cut the racing line. If the GTR would let me.

I had long forgotten about Tofu behind us. But a lion’s roar brought my attention again to the back briefly. The Camaro hadn’t crashed and had managed to finish the race. The Huracan was out (for blood?).

I’d worry about it on the next stretch. I had to turn now. Though I’d practiced trying to trail brake, I needed this turn to be perfect. So instead, I toed the brake before we entered the turn. I felt my car shiver and the front tires dug in, and eased it to full brake pressure. Quickly I shifted down gear. Now turn in!

Hit that late apex, I reminded myself, as time seemed to slow down. Ryu had taught me the racing line, and I’d practiced it nightly over the week, until I could almost see the lines drawn on the road.

Balance that throttle. Keep it neutral through the turn! The engine hummed agreeably.

The GTR was turning in late, and I could hear its tires screaming for grip as it fought to cut the apex closer than I.

Too late.

I clipped the apex, my car’s tires shivering at the edge of the road, and then I stepped on the throttle. The grip of the tires Ryu had put on this car was excellent, and I could quickly go back to full throttle without losing control.

Sparks flew as the back end of my car kissed the front end of Power Slam’s GTR. It was sliding. I wasn’t.

I let out a rough laugh of victory as my car accelerated hard out of the turn, leaving the GTR behind.

As much as I would have liked to flip the script on the cat and mouse game the GTR had played with me, the Huracan would soon be upon us, and veering side to side like that would only play into its favor.

In moments I was back to max gear, and fighting to gain as many car lengths as I could on the GTR. The force of the acceleration pushed me back into the car, and my blood hummed to the vibrations of the engine. I felt giddy.

I glanced in the rearview. Tofu had pulled a stylish drift, similar to Eunsoo, blocking in the Huracan. Good. The Huracan’s all wheel drive had a powerful grip, and even the most inexperienced driver could make a blurring turn driving it. But Fireball was touchy about contacting his Huracan to things, and he had been forced to turn at the Silvia’s pace.

“Go play with him,” I laughed at the GTR, as I darted around a car. It honked at me in alarm. My back wheels kicked out, and I flicked the wheel to right myself. Two cars driving side by side were in front, but I didn’t feel like going all the way out. Let’s do something a little fun, I thought.

The roar of my incoming engine had those two drivers panicking as they heard and saw me in their rearview. One braked in a panic, the other swerved outwards.

A flick of the wheel, a kick on the throttle, and just a touch on the handbrake, and I slid in between them. I could hear Ryu scolding me for the unnecessary powerslide, but damn if it wasn’t fun. I laughed in return to the indignant honks I soon left behind.

A buzzing roar like a swarm of hornets followed me; the GTR and the Silvia had followed me through the gap I had created in the two cars.

The Huracan was less inclined, and instead swerved around one of the cars.

The traffic was unexpectedly thick in this part of the road, which boded well for me and Tofu in our nimbler cars, but not so much for the GTR, and far less so for the Huracan.

I was loving the stiffer suspension we’d put in this car. Sitting so low and stiff, accelerating in the Z felt smooth as riding the wind. I felt a devilish thrill whipping past all the other drivers going so slowly, and the screeching of their tires and blasts of their horns were music to my ears. Briefly, I wondered if the Supra had made it into the race, or if its comrade Civic SI was still out there trying to shake off the police.

It was hard for me to follow what was going on behind me as I had to focus on my own maneuvers, but when I glanced behind me, Tofu’s Silvia was somehow ahead of the GTR. In my quick glance, I couldn’t see the lowriding Huracan, but I could still hear its predatory growl somewhere.

To my dismay, traffic was clearing as we approached the second turn. No doubt the GTR and the Huracan would gain ground here. Almost instantly, the GTR and the Huracan overtook the Silvia.

It would be almost impossible to cut the racing line perfectly with all four cars this close. My best chance as the lead car coming in would be to try to pull a reverse entry drift to try to keep the others back.

I flicked the car hard opposite to the turn, and my car jerked sharply into the turn in. I turned in hard and the back end of my car swung out hard so that the nose of my car skimmed along the sidewalk of the inner corner. The GTR handbraked hard, turning into me. Fireball’s Huracan swung out wide, trying to cut around–

Only to slam its brakes as Tofu’s Silvia came hurtling in sideways in an insanely fast four wheel drift. Stuck in my own oversteer, all I could do was watch in awe as it howled past me on the outer edge.

How in the damn?! The nose of my Z tapped into the side of the Silvia as it cut in front of me, jerking me and the GTR on my ass.

Angry awe overtook me.

I have got to learn how to powerslide like that.

Tofu’s Silvia stepped out and accelerated, leaving us behind. I cursed and righted my car in pursuit. Stylish as the Silvia’s drifting was, its only advantage was in the turns, and I knew I could catch it in the straight.

Fortunately for us, there hadn’t been any cops in pursuit.

The thought died before it fully formed. A pair of cop cars were out in front. They had attempted to form a road block, but with the two of them, they weren’t able to go side to side in the road, and had to stagger themselves slightly.

Even so, my heart sank. There was no way I could make it around them.

Apparently Tofu thought otherwise. As I watched in awe, he braked hard in a squeal of tires, whipping 180 degrees so he was driving backwards. He caught the wide eyed look on my astonished face and winked at me.

The Silvia’s tires screamed and he whipped around again, the trajectory arc of his second J-turn spun him around the first car. Before the cops could react, he floored it past the second.

Yeah. There was no way I could do that.

I hit the brakes hard, coming to a full stop in front of the cop cars. Not for the first time, I was glad of my face mask/hat combination as the policemen stared right at me. One, seeing that I had stopped, started to get out of his car.

Panic took me. I might be able to get a literal get out of jail free card from Taejun, but the thought of facing a wrathful Taejun was just as terrifying as being booked. I floored it, darting past the first car, and turning hard around the second. The back end of my car stepped out dangerously far, and for a moment my Nissan Z spun in place, fighting to regain that grip.

I felt like a cartoon character slipping and sliding as they tried to run. The cop car next to me started up. Was he going to ram me?

I’d never find out, because my faithful Z found its grip and we were gone.

I looked behind. The two police cars were struggling to start, but torn in which direction to pursue. The GTR and the Huracan had 180’d and fled back the way we had come, to find a turn and a way around.

Another low laugh tore out of me. While they hesitated in their indecision, I let my powerful Nissan Z take me. I had lost a few seconds to the Silvia. But with more than double its torque, I could unleash the full might of my engine in half the time.

The police roadblock had taken all the cars off the road, so before long, I pulled up alongside Tofu. He grinned at me, pleased to see that I had managed to also outmaneuver the cop cars.

With the powerful GTR and the Huracan nowhere to be seen, the two of us could have a little bit of fun.

Purposefully he pulled into a drift at the next turn, and simply for the joy of doing so, I imitated. In the tire smoke and thrill, I just enjoyed the ride. Cars were reappearing now, and they scrambled to get out of the way of our smoking cars.

My spirits were soaring. I wanted to be young and stupid forever.

We had an immediate turn to the other side, and the Silvia’s tires screamed as Tofu steered hard the other way, still sustaining the drift.

I tried to follow but mine was surely not as clean. At least behind the Silvia, I didn’t have to worry about careening into another car, as it was doing all the work of pushing around any slow to react cars out of the way.

It was the final stretch now, and we were high off our ride (and definitely not the gasoline fumes). I grinned at Tofu. He knew I could overtake him. But the Blue Tigers had not gained enough time to catch their overall time. No matter who won the race tonight, Team Thunder would walk away with first place in the tournament.

A wildcat’s snarl pierced the night. Somehow Fireball and the GTR had found their way back to the route. But even the powerful Huracan couldn’t catch us now.

Tofu suddenly hit reverse and I watched him swing his wheel hard into another J turn to drive backwards to taunt our pursuers. I sped past him, laughing. But his cheekiness was irresistible.

So I did one too. I swung the wheel almost 360 degrees as I put the car into neutral, and it whipped around hard. Back into first gear, snap the wheel straight, and now I was driving in reverse alongside Tofu. I could see him laughing, and so I joined in.

Right before the finish line, he did another hard 180 turn that pressed the nose of his car to mine. I laughed incredulously at him as he stepped on his throttle, shoving my Z forward. Backwards for me, and forwards for Tofu, we crossed the finish line together. My blue flag tumbled out as his yellow one drifted gracefully to the ground.

As easily if we had practiced it, both of us circled outwards from each other, where we stopped and got out to watch the Huracan’s finish. Fireball stuck his hand out the window and flipped us off, but through the slit of his windshield we could see he was grinning too. We hollered and whooped at the jet engine roar as the Huracan blurred past us. The Sunchaser’s green flag floated past me, and I couldn’t resist reaching out and letting it glide over my hand. Grabbing it outright would have been a dick move.

We let out another cheer as the GTR shot past a few seconds later, leaving behind its red flag. As it drifted past, Tofu batted it to the ground for fun. Sadly, Carbon Cult’s Supra never made it into the final race.

“You gave me the win,” I said to Tofu, as the roars of the two cars faded into the distance.

“Didn’t need to win tonight,” he said with a wink. “We had fun, ne?”

The wail of police sirens in the distance interrupted our little celebration. We ducked into our cars.

“Don’t get caught,” he shouted at me as we peeled out.

The jjapsae were certainly welcome to try.